Cross-cultural communication （169）　

169) Tsuguharu Foujita and Yasuo Kuniyoshi: A Reunion After 100 Years
In July 2025, I visited the Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art to see “Tsuguharu Foujita and Yasuo Kuniyoshi: A Reunion After 100 Years.” These two Japanese painters are renowned as artists active abroad during the same period, the first half of the 20th century. Fujita was already a prominent figure in Parisian art circles during the Ecole de Paris era of the 1920s and still has many fans in Japan today. In contrast, very few Japanese people, myself included, seem to know about Kuniyoshi. He traveled alone to the United States in 1906 at the age of 17, earning his living through manual labor while studying painting at several art schools. Around the age of 30, he began to gain recognition as a painter in New York.

Kuniyoshi visited Paris in 1925, the height of Fujita's career, and made several subsequent trips from New York to Paris. While clear evidence of direct interaction between the two was scarce, the discovery of a signed card at an exhibition where Fujita displayed his work, bearing pen drawings and signatures from both artists, seems to confirm some form of connection.

Though they flourished in different countries-France and America-both achieved success as painters abroad. In their artistic prime, they experienced the tragedy of World War II, a period when they couldn't pursue their desired activities. During this time, Fujita was forced to return to Japan and, against his will, had to cooperate as a painter for Imperial Japan. Kuniyoshi remained true to his original convictions and cooperated with the democratic nation of America. However, both later naturalized-Fujita in France and Kuniyoshi in America-regained their honor, and ultimately ended their lives in those countries.

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